Glass
by thatiranianphantom
Summary: Erin Lindsay is a mother, and it is the After. A different kind of babyfic.
1. Turn and Face The Sun

**A/N: Hello, Chicago P.D. fandom! It is a pleasure to be here. I've watched Fire for a long time before P.D. but I finally got in because of Linstead! Bear in mind, I'm still very new, and I have…odd character preferences, but I am really excited about this story! This first chapter is short, but believe me, it will get longer. **

**Also, as a forewarning, I suck at updating, I'm trying to avoid that by writing a few chapters at a time, and hopefully that will help with posting regularly. I'm trying to bank on at least once a week. **

**Also, I could find no stories in ANY fandom dealing with this topic, even though babyfics are so common. And this situation is much more common than we think, thus, someone had to have this happen. Bear with me, it won't all be doom and gloom. And if you're offended, please, that was not my intention. Stick with me, it'll get better. **

December 15th, 2016.

**In the Now. **

They had thought something was different, before.

Didn't catch it till late, of course. That would be too convenient.

But she remembers the whispers, the murmurs of _nuchal translucency_ and _short femur_ and _ASD/VSD_, smoothed over by "we can't be sure", "everything could be normal", "don't worry honey, you just focus on staying healthy, let us take care of this.

Yeah.

Like they knew. Like it was them who had to deal with this.

**In the Before.**

Voight gruffly congratulated them, and Erin subtly slips an ultrasound copy (early one) onto his desk.

The next time she sees it, it's when she's picking up a photo of Justin she knocked over (no center of gravity these days).

The photo is tucked behind Justin's picture, well-worn.

Voight kept in on his otherwise completely bare desk, but out of plain view. It is so much like him, Erin can hardly believe it.

Alvin and Adam, they act strange around her, like she's changed somehow.

Kim brings over juices and snacks and sits with her while she cries at a bladder dysfunction commercial, swearing up and down never to tell anyone, on threat of death.

("I'm serious. They'd never find you.")

And Jay….Jay would be cartwheeling, she suspects, if he knew how.

He squeezes her, not to tightly, and she sees tears in his eyes.

(It takes her a good two weeks to convince him that they can still have sex, but sometimes he still freaks out about it, insisting both shouldn't be in there at the same time.)

Aside from the copious vomiting, which gets painfully annoying at times, the first six months are a breeze.

She barely gains any weight until her sixth month, never gets any serious side effects, feels energetic and almost entirely average.

(Well, so she thinks. Jay tells her that the day he cleared all beer out of the apartment, he had never heard such words come from her. )

And Erin…..Erin had the Terror.

It starts the moment she sees the plus sign, and it grows every time she hears the loud fluttering of a heartbeat, or feels the small resistance of a kick.

She felt it, every minute of every day, while this actual real live human being grew inside her. While her belly stretched and her boobs got painfully uncomfortable and her body ceased to be her own.

She felt it every time someone mentioned some permutation of "not long now", because yes, not long from now, that was when the _real thing _started. Where she was responsible for not screwing up a real human being. For making sure they were normal enough to become a doctor or a lawyer, to make sure they grew up and got married and got a house of their own and saved the world and became president and that was _all_ on her and she couldn't do that.

She could barely manage not to screw up her own life, and had stumbled, entirely by chance onto the most amazing guy she could have but that didn't mean she was ready for this.

And she knew, she knew the second that baby's murky eyes looked at her, they'd know too.

She was unworthy of this.

She didn't know how to do this.

**In The Now**.

Those eyes, they do stare at her. Erin is frozen in terror, even when the nurses take the baby away.

(For tests, they say. More _don't worry_, and _let's not assume until we know for sure._)

Why they are doing this dance, Erin doesn't understand.

Because she does know for sure.

She knew it the second the baby was placed, screaming, covered in fluid, on her chest. The second the baby met her eyes, she knew.

She doesn't need the tests.

Doesn't need the reassurance.

Doesn't need Jay's _this doesn't change anything_ speech.

Because it does, it changes everything, and she knows.

She can't explain how, but she damn well doesn't need to look at what they call a simian crease, or the gap between her baby's toes. Or the flattened nose bridge, or the almond eyes.

Erin Lindsay is responsible for a child's life. Erin Lindsay is a mother, and it is the After.

Erin Lindsay is responsible for raising a tiny baby girl with Down Syndrome, and nothing, nothing anyone says or does, will keep the Terror away.

**A/N: …okeydokey, you like?**


	2. You With The Sad Eyes

**A/N: Well, howdy! It is I again, delivering your standard depressing fanfiction! Again, I swear it's not all going to be this sad and depressing. **

**But what a lovely response on the last chapter! I'm so glad you are like this and finding it different! To be completely frank, I am somewhat disappointed and unsatisfied in this chapter. It doesn't feel quite okay to me, but I can do no more editing, so here it is. I hope you enjoy anyway!**

Clara Victoria Halstead, they name her.

How they got there, she's not sure.

She only remembers that those two names just seemed to settle on the infant like a cloak.

Bright and victorious.

Not that she can tell, the nurses whisk the baby to the doctor for tests just after she's born and Erin barely sees her.

Is this a good thing or a bad thing, she wonders?

How will she tell everyone else, she wonders?

_Why_, she wonders?

Was giving her a child not enough? They had to add something extra, just to screw her that little bit more?

She is still in her hospital bed, as much as she longs to not be here, when there is a soft knock at the door. A young woman, with neat dark hair, a lab coat, and a tag reading "Dr. Chu", is at the door.

She introduces herself as a pediatrician, assigned to their daughter's case (the words still sound foreign. Her daughter).

Jay reaches for Erin's hand immediately. They never used to be outwardly affectionate. But he is nervous, she can tell. As tough as his "this doesn't change anything" speech was ("she's still our kid, Erin. Ours. We made a promise, we love her nomatter what"), she knows he has fears. Concerns. She desperately wants to smooth a hand over his furrowed brow, wants to comfort him in some way. But The Terror. The Terror doesn't allow comfort, it doesn't allow togetherness.

And, as Erin is starting to learn, it doesn't allow love under its grip, either.

The young woman takes a breath, and her expression softens into one of pity. _That _is an expression Erin knows all too well.

"I'm sorry to have to tell you this," she begins with a slight accent. "But your daughter displays several features, such as low-set ears, a simian crease, and a gap between her toes, that lead us to think…."

"She has Down Syndrome," Erin hears herself say flatly.

She feels Jay's incredulous look at the emotionless tone, but cannot look at him, does not respond.

Even the doctor looks slightly surprised, but gives a slight nod.

"We believe so, yes."

She moves closer, schools her face into what must appear to be a comforting expression.

"I wish that was all the news I had for you. But we have also run several other tests, and it appears that there is a problem with your child's heart."

That gets Erin's attention. She feels Jay's hand tighten in hers.

"It is common," the doctor explains, "for children with Down Syndrome to be born with heart problems. We've run an echo, and your daughter has a VSD and ASD defect. They are fixable, but not yet. Right now, she is just too tiny to go through heart surgery."

Jay takes a breath beside her. "So…what do we do?"

The doctor smiles gently.

"You take her home. You love her, you get her to a healthy weight, until she can handle surgery, and then you leave fixing that issue to us."

_(Break)_

Clara cries.

She cries and she cries and Erin lives in a bubble, barely hearing her anguished wails.

Can't even go into the softly lit room that hold what feels like a tiny stranger.

Jay picks her up, he bounces her gently, and she finally, _finally _falls asleep against him as he strokes the tiny apple of her cheek.

Will you be okay, he asks her.

It's only been a few weeks with her home, he points out.

It's just going to be a few hours, he says. I'll make all her bottles (she hates formula and it's a fight to get it into her).

She's sure she must have nodded, because it's the day of, and he's gone, after pressing the baby into her arms.

The baby's hands are pressed to her cheeks, and she sleeps.

Erin looks down at her, and thinks she might actually feel something different, for once.

And then the baby gives a slight cough and her tongue protrudes slightly. Her hands move as if she is waking, and It's back.

_(break)_

Jay hears it before he arrives home.

He's shocked the neighbors have not yet called the police. He can't seem to get his key in fast enough.

The baby is in her cradle, red-faced and wailing like she's been bitten, and Erin sits on the sofa, rocking back and forth with her face in her hands.

Jay picks his daughter up, rocks her a bit, but her cries don't cease, and Erin's rocking increases.

He stomps over to his girlfriend, jerking her arm a bit to bring her back to the present, and he cannot help the anger that jumps into his tone as he demands to know how long she has been crying.

"Long time," Erin whispers.

"She was _screaming_, Erin! You didn't ever think to check on her?"

Erin glances at the child almost fearfully. Shakes her head. "Couldn't."

"Why the hell not?" he bites out.

She turns her eyes to Jay, filled with tears. "I _couldn't._"

Infuriated, he slams one hand down on the table, startling the baby and making her wail even louder.

With a deep breath, he moves to the kitchen to make her a bottle.

By the time it's ready, he has calmed only slightly. The baby latches immediately, telling Jay how long it's been since she's eaten.

He moves back to Erin, still sitting with her hands wrapped around her knees.

He hardly even knows what to say, doesn't trust himself to censor what comes out.

"How could you leave her?" is what finally comes out.

A shrug. The anger rises.

"Christ, Erin, do you even love her?!"

"_I can't!"_

"Why do you keep saying that!"

"Because I will _ruin_ her, Jay! What the hell does she have to look forward to with me? That she'll spend her childhood exactly like I did? Getting fixes for mom?"

"Erin, you won't…"

"I _will,_ Jay! I will, because it's all I know. You know it and I know it. And she looked at me and…"

Erin breaks off, her eyes fill, and suddenly, she tears for the door, barely stopping to grab her coat.

"Erin!"

"_Don't!" _ is all she says as she runs away, away from both of them.

Erin Lindsay runs away. She dumps them and spits them out, even Voight knows this.

And she knows why. They don't want her, not really. The baby, she'd be better off with Jay anyway. What about being a cop had taught her to be warm or caring, or at all motherly? What had it taught her about all her child would need? Speech therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, surgery, CBC, echocardiograms.

It's not that she _can't_ do it. It's not that she _doesn't _love her child, the child she's barely touched in the last two months. It's not that she isn't capable of learning to parent this child.

It is that she is so goddamn _terrified_ of hurting this impossibly fragile child. So afraid of that look of disappointment in the eyes of the child she created with the person she loves most.

And the baby, she _knew_. Erin had seen it in her eyes, as they stared straight into her mothers'. She had seen the exact expression in her two week old child's eyes that she had worn so many times, so long ago.

"You don't deserve me. You don't deserve this. I deserve better than you."

And the hardest thing, the absolute _hardest_ thing Erin knows about this, is that she is so completely, pathetically right.


	3. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

**A/N: THAT IS IT; I AM JUST GOING TO HAVE TO BE UNSATISFIED WITH MY WRITING (but when am I ever satisfied with my writing?). **

**Anyhoo, hello again! I bring you new chapter! Trying to lighten it a bit in this one. Also, typo in the last chapter when it says "two months". It's meant to be two weeks, as Clara is two weeks old. Also, I don't know if anyone noticed, but until this point Erin has never referred to Clara by her name, always by some general pronoun. **

It's so quiet.

So absolutely quiet for 9pm.

Erin has walked around Chicago's streets for as long as she can remember, in various capacities, and never known it to be this noiseless on the roads.

And why was it so hard to find a fucking bar at 9pm?

If there is one thing Erin Lindsay knows how to do damn well (besides dump anyone who tries to get close), it's drink, and after today, she really, _really _needs a drink.

She doesn't really care where, so she stumbles into the first one she can find (long-ass walk away) and orders a beer.

With condensation on her hands and her legs weary, Erin heaves a sigh and drops her head into her hands, trying to figure out what the hell just happened.

What _had_ just happened?

Had she truly walked out on the only family she had?

The last few months spin in a whirlwind through her mind.

She and Jay. Those few months of total happiness, lazy weekend mornings and sex in broom closets (how they never managed to get caught is beyond her). He was always convinced Platt knew, practically walked on tiptoe around her. The day she didn't use her standard six or more insults on him (there were only four), he pulled Erin into a broom closet, a mess of _oh my god Erin_ and _she knows, she freaking knows!_

Coming clean to Voight and the way Jay had stepped ever so slightly behind her. (_"A human shield? I'm a human shield to you_?)

The gruff rumble of "don't screw this up, Halstead" that meant they had his approval.

Unofficially moving in together. He had given her a drawer with a bow affixed to it, an uncharacteristically shy expression on his face.

The pregnancy test, sitting on the cold tub rim, hands and legs shaking. The positive sign and the first appearance of The Terror, lasting to present day.

Her pregnancy. She thinks, with a start, that she probably pushed all thoughts of the coming baby from her mind for the entire time. Dissociating, she guesses. Has she ever really stopped? Does she think about her baby now? _Can_ she?

The birth. If she's honest, she remembers little of it.

A bit too real. A bit too fast (although she's sure she didn't think it was fast at the time).

And the The Now.

Where she's sitting in a dingy bar, a beer her only company.

But she just couldn't face her, couldn't face them. Jay loves their child, adores the little girl, and she…she couldn't.

She couldn't because she was so completely terrified of seven pounds of living, breathing human that was relying on her.

So why _shouldn't _she give her to Jay? At least _him _the child could rely on.

_Because it's about her, and she deserves better._

Logically, Erin knows this, but this child is untainted. Completely innocent. Completely dependent.

And suddenly, Erin needs to talk about what she can't talk to Jay about.

Her fingers grab for her phone dial without even realizing it and as soon as a voice answers, Erin hears the coos of an infant in the background. Her stomach knots painfully, but the words spill out anyway. All the words she's been holding back for weeks, maybe months.

She's not sure what she's looking for, but maybe it's understanding. Sympathy.

Should have known she wouldn't get that, maybe didn't deserve that.

Erin can feel Olivia Benson's sigh through the phone.

"Erin," she hesitates. "My mother hated me."

Erin starts to protest, but Olivia stops her.

"My mother hated me, at first for what my father did to her, but then just…for me. There is nothing, _nothing_ worse than being hated by the person whose job it is to love you, and I know you. You are a good, kind person and you _can_ love this child. Please, don't make her go through this."

Tears well in Erin's eyes, and the cooing starts again in the background.

"We're mothers, Erin. You and I. We're mothers now."

Something new comes over Erin. She has never thought of herself as such, but she is. She's somebody's mother.

"And as mothers…it's not our job to be the person they're protected from. It's our job to be the person that protects them. That's the promise you made, even if you never said it, from the moment you decided to keep her. Because it's not about you anymore, Erin. I get that you're scared, but you need to get past it. When she was born, it became all about her."

The words wash over her.

Her thoughts spiral.

She's a mother.

She has a daughter.

Her daughter needs her.

She needs to protect her daughter.

Because everything had changed, In The Now. Erin was, _is_ terrified, but she _has _to do better than her mother did, because her tiny, perfect daughter is counting on her.

Her Clara Victoria was counting on her and she just….abandoned her.

She was scared. She was selfish.

And those are two things she can't afford to be anymore, as a mother.

_(break)_

Jay is blessedly, thankfully asleep when she comes in, so she moves with practiced, quiet steps to stand next to their bed. His face was peaceful when he slept. She supposes she never realized how tense and cautious he has been recently. Not cautious around the baby.

Cautious around her.

She passes her fingertips up his cheek and into his hair, pressing a kiss to his forehead.

How lucky she is.

How stupid she is to have never realized it.

With movements still whisper soft, she opens the door to the sweet-smelling, dark little room.

The baby is sleeping; her little fists sprawled out on the mattress, wrapped in a pink blanket.

Erin takes a deep breath.

_It's about her now_.

She gently reaches down and cradles the child's head with one hand, bringing the other around the baby's body, until she is tight against her.

It strikes her that this may be the first time actually holding her daughter as she makes her way ever so carefully over to the rocking chair and lowers herself into it.

She stretches out so that the infant is lying in her arms, and look at the face of her daughter with Down Syndrome. Her almond eyes, her round cheeks, her flat nose bridge.

"Clara Victoria Halstead," she whispers, running a finger over the baby's tiny forehead and soft, round cheeks, and realized something. Something she hadn't thought of before.

Those things that scared her, those features that would tell the world that her baby was imperfect in their eyes, they were really just parts of her daughter. Like a half-finished puzzle, she only saw the outside. But one day, she knew. One day she wouldn't be Clara, a child with Down Syndrome. One day she would just be Clara.

The child opens her eyes and levels a blue-eyed gaze at Erin, so like her father. A smile creeps onto her face as she strokes the child's face, arms, and any skin she can reach.

"Hi," she whispers as her eyes fill. "Hi, my Clara. It's Mommy."

Clara waves her arms toward Erin's face, trying to grab at Erin's nose before her hands settle on her mother's cheeks, wet with tears.

Erin bends down and takes in the fresh, newborn scent of her baby, the tears falling unchecked.

"I'm so sorry," she whispers. "Mommy's so, so sorry she didn't see you."

She readjusts the girl so that her hands are supporting the tiny body and head and the child is facing her.

"But that's going to change," she whispers. "Mommy is going to be the best mommy she possibly can to you, because you deserve _everything_."

And she swears, she can see it in her eyes, the child believes her.

She lays the baby back in her arms, and that is how they fall asleep, mother and daughter, wrapped in the dimly lit room and each other's arms.


	4. I Know Things Now

**A/N: Another chapter. Still unsatisfied with this. But I owed it to you guys! Thank you so much for the reviews, faves and alerts! This is more of an interim chapter. I know where I want to go, but this was the big swampy middle I had to cross to get there.**

**Special thanks to LaJoyMechell, for her lovely, long reviews!**

As it somewhat ironically turns out, loving her daughter is so, so much simpler than Erin had thought.

Clara is the brightest spot in her life. Even when she has one of her grumpy days and simply cannot be comforted, she is the most perfect little being Erin has ever seen.

The tough days at work, the filthy humans she has to take down, they all disappear when her bundle of perfection snuggles into her neck at the end of the day with a sigh.

She grows fast, too fast.

One moment she sleep curled up in a little burrito (swaddling blanket, Jay corrects her), and the next she has grown too big.

She _may _have shed a few tears when she folded it up.

She realizes how much things have changed when Jay dares to suggest Clara sleep in her own room (_all the way down the hall_) instead of on Erin's chest, as she had been for the past several months.

Erin now counts some of Clara's therapists among her friends.

The physical therapist, Lisa, comes once a week and gently works on the infant's flexibility and muscle strength, bending Clara's tiny feet up to her face and cooing gently at her.

She insists on the importance of "tummy time" to strengthen her daughter's muscles but Clara takes great issue with being laid on her belly, and is not shy about expressing it.

Her daughter has Down Syndrome, Erin sees it all the time.

She sees small children point to her daughter's almond eyes and ask their mothers what is wrong with her.

She notices when her daughter flops into her, no control over her own body.

She notices when she speaks with other mothers. Rarely, but when she does, she can barely stand hearing how their baby is already holding their head up, easily, as if it's no trouble, when she has seen her daughter try so, so hard to get her head up on her own, breaking into tears when her weakened muscles just can't handle that yet.

And she notices when Clara is 4 months old. They're shopping (what is it about a baby that doesn't even eat regular food that means they burn through groceries twice as fast?)

The baby is strapped to Erin's chest, contentedly sucking on her fist, when an older woman lays a hand on Erin's arm, stopping her from grabbing a pack of spaghetti.

"I just want you to know," the stranger tells her, "I think you are so brave to be raising her anyway."

And Erin is absolutely confused as she looks at the woman, which must show on her face, because the stranger clarifies.

"You know, because of the…..." she waves her arm to indicate Clara's bright green eyes, and it hits Erin all at once.

Clara has Down Syndrome. This random woman thinks Erin is brave because she is caring for her daughter. Her daughter with Down Syndrome.

Her world freezes.

At home, Erin unstraps Clara (she gives slight protest, would be content to lie on Erin all day, every day if possible). Leaving the groceries where they are, she takes her daughter to the couch and inspect every inch of her little body, breathes in her sweet baby smell, and realizes two things.

Her baby is perfect. Absolutely perfect in every imaginable way.

And this random woman had to remind Erin that her baby is, in the eyes of the world, imperfect. She is chromosomally imperfect. And yet, for a brief moment, Erin had forgotten.

Tears spill over, land on her baby's soft hand, as Erin smooths a hand over the wispy, beautiful hair on her perfect daughter's head. She bends down and whispers in the child's ear.

_I love you._

_I love you so much._

_I'm so sorry._

_I'm sorry the world doesn't see all you are._

_You're perfect. _

It seems patently unfair, not for Erin and Jay, but for Clara. Why should her child have to try so much harder at what comes so easily to others?

And it isn't like life is tough for Clara. No, she has parents who adore her, a "grandpa" who they literally have to pull away from her at some points, and aunts and uncles who, while not biologically family, are as good to her as if they were tied by blood.

No, her daughter's life is good. And Erin wouldn't wish away the therapist visits, the CBC counts, the countless specialists for her own sake, but for the sake of her baby.

Still, life is better than it was before. Now, she can do her job and still come home to her boyfriend and her beloved daughter (Jay had once joked that if they were locked in a burning building and Erin could save either him or Clara, her exact words would be "well, it's been nice").

The months fly by.

Clara lifts her own head at 4 months. A small victory, in others eyes, but to Erin it feels like she has just taken home a Nobel Prize.

Her daughter learns to sit up at eight months old. Erin cries (she seems to do that a lot lately).

Then at eight months, another milestone, albeit one that Erin tries very hard to forget.

The worst day of her life so far, by a wide margin.

And that's saying something, because Erin Lindsay has hid in a toilet stall for six hours waiting for the coast to be clear of girl who will tear her apart.

Erin Lindsay has scored drugs from dealers for her mother.

Erin Lindsay has had days long periods of no food.

But this, no question, is the hardest day of her life.

When she hands her wailing baby, who is holding out her arms for mama, to a doctor, to cut her soft skin and cut into her baby's chest and operate on her heart.

That is a hole in her soul that has never been there before.

Her knees buckle under her and Jay barely catches her in time before they are rocking back and forth together on the hospital floor, tears mingling.

And to see her baby girl after, still, swollen, with her blood-crusted wound….Erin would have taken her place in a moment, no questions asked.

She recovers and they take her home, of course.

But Erin comes back with a firm hate of the hospital and the resolution that they will never be back.

And looking back on it, from now instead of then, she still wonders if she cursed herself into what happened next.


	5. Did I Just Hear An Alarm Start Ringing

**A/N: UGH. I HATE THIS STORY. Well, no, I don't. But still, woefully unsatisfied, I can do better, you guys know the drill. Apologies both that this took so long and that it's very filler. More content soon, promise. As a warning, this chapter may be triggering. I am very sorry if it is. **

**And UGH that last episode! I have thoughts, many thoughts, but I will not bore you with them. Should you want to hear them though, drop me a message on my Tumblr (thatiranianphantom plus the usual dottumblrdotcom).**

**As always, enjoy, leave thoughts!**

**And not that it's at all relevant, but I just downloaded the movie soundtrack of The Last 5 Years and while Jeremy Jordan is and always be flawless, I can't even listen to my FAVE song from that show (Still Hurting). It just sounds BAD. Queen!Lea Salonga all the way. **

**That is your theatredork rant for this chapter. **

_(break)_

When Clara is eighteen months old, she is barely recognizable from the tiny, squishy baby she once was. Her eyes had settled on blue, and Erin is glad, because they're Jay's eyes. She has his nose, too. A little flatter, but distinctively his. The wisps of hair Erin hastily gathers into pigtails every morning are dark and silky. The toddler is chubby and absolutely adorable, and has yet to meet a stranger anywhere she goes.

Erin works shorter hours, now. She loves her job, always has, always will. But her daughter needs her more. And truthfully, Erin doesn't know where she'd be if she didn't have the adorable shriek of "MA!" greeting her every day. Daycare is close to the precinct, and by 5pm, she's ready to snuggle her daughter again.

Which is why one day, she finds it slightly odd when Jay requests she finish her paperwork, and he'll pick Clara up. Odd, but not newsworthy. She finishes up around 7pm and drives straight home.

The apartment is dark when she gets there, except for a light from the kitchen. Perplexed, Erin follows it and comes to a setting of candles scattered all around the kitchen and dinner already on the table. Clara is sitting in her high chair, babbling, gumming on something in her hands.

Erin makes her way over and pries what looks like a small box out of the toddler's hand.

Her heart freezes when she realizes what it is.

Fingers trembling, she opens it.

The ring is beautiful, but better still is the note affixed to it, in messy scrawl.

_Will you marry daddy? _it reads.

And when she turns around to see him, she can only nod and throw her arms around him.

_(break)_

It's a small wedding.

She has many people offer to take Clara but the child stays in her arms as she says her vows, and really, she'd have it no other way. During their first dance, Clara lays on her mother's chest, asleep, Jay's arms around them both. It is, to this day, Erin's favorite memory of the wedding.

And later, Clara tumbles across the dance floor, haphazardly, wobbly, but _walking_ towards Erin and she thinks that memory may top it.

_(break)_

Clara starts Kindergarten at four. Erin and Jay send her off with a little Minnie Mouse backpack (it's almost the size of her entire body) and her lunch bag in her hand. She cries the first few days, it takes the teacher's aide to pull her off her parents. Sixteen times in the first few days (she's counting) Erin considers pulling her baby out of kindergarten but knows, in the back of her mind, that it is necessary for her child to develop.

And by the end of the first week, Clara tumbles happily into the classroom, hanging her backpack on the little hook marked "Clara H.".

She is a high energy child, a force to be reckoned with. She makes her point known, even with slightly garbled speech. When Clara gets sick, they know it not by her temperature, but by a slightly slowed pace (and it is usually not a concern, Clara exudes health).

_(break)_

April 6th, 2016, the image finds its way onto their screen.

A dead little girl. Damn. It was points like this where she hated her job.

Not just any dead little girl, though. Erin immediately recognized the full face, the upward slant of the eyes.

A child with Down Syndrome. Her heart freezes and she catches Jay's eyes, his expression mirroring her own.

The little girl has no ID. She isn't in the system. They can't find her parents.

They do, however, find injection marks all over her body. The ME is confused, can't find anything in her blood to indicate a drug infection.

Erin and Jay drag themselves to Clara's school at the end of the day, utterly dejected and just wanting their little girl.

The first sign is that Clara is the last to come out. Typically, she is banging on the window, frantic upon seeing them.

The teacher guides her out by the hand and tells them she seems to be feeling a little under the weather. She has a slight temperature, and it's probably to be expected with so many children getting sick.

She still greets them with the same warm smile, the same shriek of "MAMADADDY!" Erin can't wait any longer, scoops her child up in her arms and presses her nose to the soft hair of her living, breathing child.

She never lets her go until she tucks her child into bed, amid the usual protests for just one more "so-ree" that she can finally gaze at her little girl's face.

Slightly flushed, her beautiful almond eyes are closed, her hand in a loose fist at her temple, dark hair splayed over her pillow.

She is, as she always has been, the most beautiful thing Erin has ever seen.

She _cannot_ possibly understand how anyone could have a child as beautiful as her Clara and not care that they are missing. Erin doesn't even know what a day without Clara would do to her.

And yet, this child. Her life was taken, and she has no family, no identity, nobody who cared that she was gone.

Tears fall on the bedspread. Erin wonders when she became so softhearted, but knows the answer to that in the back of her mind.

Pressing a kiss to her baby's head, she leaves the room. Without even bothering to change, she falls onto the bed, and into her husband's arms.

This child, this little girl, she will not fade away, unnoticed. They will find out what happened to her, Erin vows to herself.

Her husband's arms tighten around her, and the strange sense of trepidation rests in her stomach, but her eyes close anyway and she falls into a fitful sleep.


	6. Bright Eyes

**A/N: Ah, FINALLY! I think it's fitting that this is up on March 21****st****, which, if you guys weren't aware, is World Down Syndrome Day. Much more alike than different. **

**As a forewarning, this chapter contains mentions of something that may be triggering for some. **

She wants to know what happened to this tiny, innocent child, she really does.

But she is also scared to find out.

The needle marks, the anonymity…it appears nobody cared that this child was missing, never mind dead.

Of course, that becomes secondary when Clara wakes, sluggish and her body burning with fever.

Clara has been sick for going on a week. Erin resolves if her fever doesn't break, that she would take her to the doctor next week. Clara has never been sick for this long before, and Erin doesn't know how many more Mr. Tumble videos she can sit through.

"Mama," she whimpers plaintively, beckoning Erin to come over, change the damp cloth on her forehead, and snuggle with her.

Two days later, her fever has broken but she is still sluggish and miserable.

Her sheets have been puked on many different times, and her room smells terrible. Having taken a day off from work to be with her sick baby, Erin finally ventures in to change her sheets.

Clara sleeps as she moves the child to the couch, opens the window and changes the sheets.

Erin figures she'll give the room a few minutes to air out, and then settle the child back down.

For once, she manages to get some washing in and some dishes done, before making her way back to her daughter.

Clara's Dora pajama shirt rides up when Erin picks her up, and that is when she sees it.

Her feet carry her quickly back to Clara's bedroom, so she can inspect it closely.

Her heart sinks lower and lower as she observes the bright red marks dotting her child's stomach.

She wishes, desperately wishes, she didn't know what those were. And what they could mean.

She calls the doctor without hesitation. He will see her tomorrow.

And until then she will hold her child.

Her living, breathing (_but not healthy_ her subconscious whispers) child.

She calls Jay too, and he comes home and holds them both.

The next day, they take Clara to the doctor.

Clara can walk, has been able to for years, but Erin insists on cuddling her close as they enter the office.

The child lays her head on Erin's shoulder and contentedly sucks her thumb as they wait, and Erin lays her head on her baby's and tries to quell the feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach.

In the waiting room, she gets a text from Voight.

_M.E. report is in. Call me._

Even in text, he is noncommittal.

She carefully shifts Clara over to Jay, gives his hand a squeeze, and punches in Voight's number.

"Hey, kid. How's the little one?" his gruff voice answers.

"Still waiting to be seen. What did the M.E. say?"

Voight heaves a heavy sigh (never a good sign in anyone, but for Voight, who has seen so much evil in the world, this is particularly bad news).

"M.E found evidence of…what she thinks is experimentation on this kid."

Erin's mouth drops open. "Experimentation?"

"Yeah. Human testing, Evidence of some non-FDA approved drugs, medically unnecessary procedures, repeated testing. Someone used this kid as a lab rat."

Horror knaws at Erin's stomach as the reality of this child's life sinks in.

"She was….she was an animal to them."

"Less. M.E. says some of these procedures are highly controversial, 'specially since she appears to have nothing medically wrong."

There is a knock on the window, and Erin starts and turns to see Jay, beckoning her in.

" I gotta go," she whispers.

There is a brief pause, and then she hears the resolve in Voight's tone.

"We're gonna get them, Erin. We're gonna find out who did this to this kid."

"June," Erin whispers.

"What?"

"She should have a name. She was a person, a human being. She should have a name. Her name is June."

She can practically hear Voight's smile through the phone.

"Pretty. June it is."

_(break)_

Clara has never liked doctors. Too much experience with them, Erin figures. Or perhaps it is the coldness of this office, the smell of antiseptic stinging her little eyes, the chill of the doctor's gloves on her belly.

Either way, she manages a very healthy cry, holding out her arms for Erin.

She tries hard to read the doctor's expression as he rises and Clara immediately launches herself into Jay's arms, but he is inscrutable, turning his gaze to write an order on his laptop.

After a moment, Erin can contain it no longer.

"So…what are your thoughts?"

The doctor lets out a breath and turns to them.

This time, his eyes hold concern.

"Ms. Lindsay, your daughter has the presence of both petechiae and bruising. She's also lost some weight."

She gulps. "That could….just be from being sick, right?"

"Maybe," he nods, and she knows he is only appeasing her.

"Either way, I'm ordering a CBC. The nurse will collect it. I assume it's best to do it now, since Ms. Clara –" he reaches toward her, and she recoils with a suspicious glare – "probably won't want to be back here anytime soon."

Erin nods woodenly.

_(break)_

Clara does scream when her blood is taken.

Quite an impressive, indignant scream, in fact. And then they are told to go home and wait.

And that waiting is probably worse than anything, Erin thinks.

Clara falls asleep quickly when they get home, so her and Jay order a pizza and then lie on the couch.

She updates him on their case and watches his whole body tense, as she knew it would.

He sees their innocent daughter on that child's face, as she knew he would.

And he comes with her to check on their sleeping child, as she knew he would.

He knows what this blood test could mean as well as she does, she can tell by how he laces his fingers with hers as they lie down in their room, full of Clara's toys and blankets and medicines.

She has invaded every inch of their lives, and Erin struggles to remember a time without their child. She struggles as well to think of how their lives could be without their little girl.

Without the small, demanding presence who loved ice cream (but only strawberry and mint, and she would let you know it), whose entire face lit up when Mr. Tumble came on the TV, who had no conventional family but had been gifted with a grandpa, three uncles and an auntie who adored her. Who couldn't sleep without her bunky (her bunny whose ear she was so fond of sucking on as an infant). Who was firmly convinced that it was not Burger King, it was "Borker Kig" and god help anyone who tried to tell her different. Who had Down Syndrome. And who had changed her parent's lives more than she had ever thought possible.


End file.
